Ok well I had an idea for a website and i'm determined to make it work.
It's about as complicated as Myspace or ebay, and somewhat similar size, of not a little bigger.
How long would a site like these take for an expert coder?

and as for me, i only know the basics right now (html, css, some javascript), but i'll gladly go all out learning as much as I can to make this work.
but, thats if it's even possible really. Basically i'm asking how hard would it be for me to learn it all and do the website myself? would it be next to impossible? i'm honestly not sure what kind of task i'm lookin at, although i do know its rather daunting.

so, how hard is it to make one of these kinds of websites?

In short to code that sort of thing from the ground up is a big task and requires a fairly high level of expertise.

You will need good database design and coding skills plus you will have to learn a server side language.

Aside from just coding the pages, if you have high exposure to the public you need to have extremely tight security, depending on the nature of the site you need backup and disaster recovery strategies.....

All that said there is a wealth of pay and open source web applications out there. Break down the functionality into lists, along the lines of,
The site needs to:

1) Let user register
2) Let users post articles
3) List Articles with customisable filters

etc.....

Then start looking for something that fulfills your needs.

If you are determined to do it yourself look and PHP for your language and MySQL for your DB. They are free and there are tonnes of tutorials and articles available.

If you decide to code it yourself I think you could be in for a long and bumpy ride....

hmm alright ty.
um, may I ask how long of a bumpy ride do you think i'm looking at if i were to attempt it? I wouldn't mind too much because I think the end result would be worth it, but if I work on it an hour or two every weekday, and lets say 5+ hours on weekends, how long would it take for me to learn and code everything myself? Not including graphics though, somebody else would cover that.

edit: also do you think all together it would be quicker to do all the coding myself, or do also learn how to use a program like frontpage and do much of the coding with that, and touch it up/fix mistakes myself?

That's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string question". It depends on how many concepts are new to you. Do you have DB experience or programming experience etc....

At a guess I think you are looking at many, many months (look at it this way at the rate you are talking it'll take you over a week to do 8 hours work).

To give yourself a better idea, try putting together the login screen, with database backend etc...

If this is a serious site, that you want to make money from, then spend some money and get a professional to help you.

No offense but it sounds like you might be out of your depth....

no offense taken i am dephinately way out of my depth.
and my bad about the frontpage deal, i misunderstood jnjc horendously the first time reading, i'd never use it lol. was just an example...

basically i don't expect anything fast. I'm planning to work on this throughout a few years, I am not in a rush. I will do a few other simpler websites in the meantime, and try to get my skill level to a point where this isn't over my head. then i'll get back to it. i'll probably higher some professional help for the stuff that i simple couldn't do, but would like to do all the tedious work myself at that point.

ty both, just wanted to see how hopeless i was ^_^
not gonna give up tho
thxs again